


Negotiations

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-13
Updated: 2009-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Jo wasn't back out in time, Ellen was going in after her, and Joanna Beth Harvelle could just suck it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiations

**Author's Note:**

> Set a short while before 5x02, written for embroiderama's birthday and for my spn_30snapshots table, prompt #11. Thank you to musesfool for the beta.

Thirty minutes, Ellen said, and Jo gave her a tight little nod, lips pressed together hard.

That was after a long argument and several bursts of haggling where Jo started at asking for an hour.

Ellen leaned forward and folded her arms across the steering wheel of the old truck. There were two cars in front of the house, but nobody home, the owners having run to the neighbors' in a panic last night. Didn't even bother to put on shoes, from what they'd heard.

Fog hovered over the place, which might be pretty in summer, and created a wall of nothing beyond the house, as if the rest of the world had vanished. It might as well have. She glanced at her watch, then went back to peering through the front windshield, resting her chin on her lower arm.

The windows were rolled down, and the air smelled of vinyl and moldy leaves and a damp, wet scent that tasted like what she'd always imagined clouds were like. Cold. Ellen thought of the flask of whiskey in the glove compartment, decided against it, then took it out anyway. She took two swallows and put the flask away again. The burn of it made her think of home and the dry Nebraska wind.

Ten minutes down. There was no sign of movement from inside, and Ellen's cell stayed silent on the dashboard.

It was Jo's job to go in and find out what was in there. It was Ellen's job to make sure Jo emerged from this hunt in one piece, but Jo'd gotten that tilt to her chin when Ellen said, fine, let's go in together then.

God, that girl could argue.

Ellen slapped her palm against the steering wheel, then rubbed at the cloudy window with her sleeve, revealing more of the spiky bare branches of the trees that brushed up into the gray-white void of a sky.

When they'd still had the bar, all those times when she'd sat up waiting for Bill, it'd been easier. There'd been things to do -- inventory, rewashing the glasses, checking the books, slicing limes.

But this -- this interminable life on the road, this was crap. A lot of waiting, and long hours spent in public libraries, and motel rooms with bad mattresses, and diners with terrible food.

Fifteen minutes gone. If Jo wasn't back out in time, Ellen was going in after her, and Joanna Beth Harvelle could just suck it up.

She got the salt gun out from under the seat, checked the chamber, and put it down on the passenger seat.

Couldn't read, she was too distracted; besides, she needed to be doing things with her hands. Couldn't listen to music, or she wouldn't hear her daughter's scream.

This was the last time they were doing it this way. They went in together or they didn't go in at all and, truth be told, that wasn't because Jo didn't know what she was doing -- it was because Ellen would go stark raving crazy if she had to sit and wait like this.

Jo knew what she was doing. That was the problem. Hunters who knew what they were doing were usually the ones who got the most battered.

The front door of the house opened, and Ellen's breath caught in her throat. The slender figure walked across the porch and down the steps, a spot of blue against the washed-out world, and headed across the empty stretch of land towards the truck.

"Well?" Ellen said tartly, as Jo stopped outside Ellen's window.

Fine drops of rain glinted on Jo's pale hair. She held the shotgun pointed down, the barrel along her leg, EMF meter sticking out of the pocket of her fleece jacket.

"It's a spirit," Jo said, glancing back over her shoulder. "Not too powerful."

"You saw it?"

"Yeah."

Ellen waited but Jo wasn't going to tell her more.

"Get in, then," Ellen said, and reached across to open the passenger side door.

Jo walked around and got in; Ellen saw her fingers had gone too pink in some areas, too pale in others but the way things had been going lately she didn't dare reach out to try and warm her hands.

Turning on the ignition and putting the truck in gear, Ellen thought that for the next couple of hours at least, it'd be better. Jo would be neck deep in research for a while. The salt-and-burn might be easy. Might. A few hours in a graveyard -- Ellen would make sure they had plenty of hot coffee -- and some digging, which Jo would of course insist on doing herself. They'd probably fight about it.

"Hey," Ellen said. She couldn't quite resist smoothing back the stray hairs that had fallen forward against Jo's cheek, and Jo let her. "You want something to eat?"

"Yeah, I'm starving."

Ellen pulled out onto the road, and counted her blessings.

~end


End file.
